This paper looks into the dilemma of what counts as a grammatical 'learner error' in ELT on the basis of recent results from English variationist research and English as a lingua franca research. Examples from these studies show that features often perceived as 'errors' for EFL speakers also occur in ESL production--where they are called…

Areas of contradiction and controversy over error analysis are discussed, and an interference error analysis project is described, giving a detailed definition of interference error. Several practical approaches to teaching out interference errors are outlined. (MSE)